I woke up in the hospital bed after the 8 hour operation, my leg wrapped in gauze, with a transparent tube coming out of the top of the gauze just below my knee. The tube terminated into a small transparent vacuum canister. The canister was partially filled with some kind of bloody fluid.
The operation had been a success: the bone graft from my hip had been implanted in my tibia, and the stainless steel surgical plate had been bolted up the length of my shin by a series of 12 large screws. The long surgical incision had been stapled up and now I lay there with this suction device coming out of my leg.
I was told the suction device was necessary to remove the fluids that build up due to the violence of the injury and the surgery. If these elements of the ‘weeping wound’ were not removed I could suffer infection which could lead to some very nasty outcomes. I was also on a steady diet of antibiotics to ensure there was no infection.
All this reparation work was needed due to a violent break I suffered on my right leg while playing soccer during university. My lower leg has broken in 3 places to the point where it was bent at right angles – it was horrific, excruciatingly painful and took 3 years to heal.
What does this have to do with walking in the light?
Well, think about the transparent tube sucking all the harmful fluids out of the inside of my leg. That’s a picture of ‘walking in the light’. We get beat up and injured in life on a regular basis – not necessarily physically, but emotionally and spiritually.
In the midst of life’s struggles and strains, worries and wonderings, failures and fears our hearts can get filled with potentially deadly elements. Discouragement, despair, depression, self-loathing, resentment, anger, bitterness, worry, fear, faithlessness, sin – these are all toxic to our emotional and spiritual health. If we don’t get them out of our system they can cause significant damage.
Walking in the light is simply bringing all these out in the open. It’s sharing with God and with man what is going on inside our hearts. It’s choosing to get out that which will kill us if we choose to keep it inside.
Conversation and confession is critically important.
When we retreat into ourselves we begin to spiral deeper down into emptiness and lifelessness. Walking in the light is making the choice to open up to the Lord and trusted friends. It’s sharing fears and failures, worries and wonderings, struggles and sins with others.
The only way we can do that is if we begin by choosing humility. You don’t have all the answers. You don’t have it all together. You aren’t the perfect man. Great – join the club. We need God and we need each other. Refusing to walk in the light is simply arrogance. It takes humility to walk in the light, but that choice will open up the grace of God to you.
And that leads to life.
Refusing to open up and talk about what is going on inside you will simply cause you to waste away even more – and that leads to death. Even King David said that when he kept silent his bones wasted away. Refusing to walk openly with God is rebellion. It’s a belief that, ‘I can do this on my own and don’t need God.’ That approach to life doesn’t end well.
It’s not manly to be quiet and refuse to share what’s going on inside you – it’s foolish. When we choose to walk in the light with God and with other men we not only get the crap out from inside us, but we allow the light, life and truth of God to get into us. It is a manly courageous decision to walk in the light, and that decision begins with humility. We must realize that we need each other, and we need the Lord.
Don’t let your pride keep you from the life you are thirsting for. Choose humility and walk in the light with God and with other men. Confession and conversation are critical for the life God has for you.
I John 1:7
“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His son, purifies us from all sin.”
Psalm 32:3
“When I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.”
Psalm 68:6
“God sets the lonely in families, He leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.”